Fourplay

by Jane Moore

  So Jeff took the week off work to stay with the children in London, and Jo stayed with her mother waiting for the first sign of emotional meltdown. She didn’t have to wait long—it happened the morning after the funeral.

  Jo was resting in the spare bedroom, staring at the Colgate-white net curtains and thinking about her father, when she heard a low-pitched wailing noise like that of a wounded animal. At first, she thought it was cats fighting, but then it rose to such a crescendo that she was on her feet in two seconds and running for the door.

  Her mother lay across the yellow candlewick counterpane of her bed, her face buried in the folds. In her clenched fist there was a hairbrush.

  “Mum, what is it?” said Jo, placing a hand on her back. Of course, she knew what it was, but she was frightened she’d be unable to deal with it.

  She wasn’t sure at what point she’d realized her parents weren’t the infallible, invincible beings she’d spent her childhood thinking they were, but she’d certainly never seen such visible proof of it as she was witnessing right now.

  “It’s his brush. It was in his side drawer and it still has his hair in it,” wept her mother, her words barely distinguishable through the sobbing.

  “Come here.” Jo sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her mother’s shaking body toward her. “Let it all out, Mum. I had a good old sob yesterday when I found his cardigan in the shed, and I felt so much better afterward.”

  Wrapping her arms tighter, Jo squeezed and rocked with Pam in a reassuring motion. It was the first prolonged hug they had ever shared.

  35

  Jo learned more about her father in the few days after his death than she had ever known during his life. She sat fascinated for hours as her mother relayed detailed anecdotes of their life together, and of how they’d first met.

  “I had gone alone to this do and was placed next to him,” said Pam, her pale, tired eyes shining at the memory. “When I sat down, I remember thinking, ‘He looks a bit of a bore,’ but by the end of the night I was completely in love with him. He made me laugh like no one else.”

  “So did he ask you out that night?” said Jo, avid to hear the beginnings of the relationship that spawned her.

  “No, he didn’t. In fact, he didn’t even attempt to flirt with me which I was a little put out by, I remember. But I found out later that he had a girlfriend at the time, so consequently I liked him even more for not pursuing me.”

  “So how did you get together?” frowned Jo. She had only ever heard the shortened version that they had met at a dinner dance.

  “Oooh, it was at least six months later, and he came into the sweet shop I was working in at the time. It turned out the girlfriend had found someone else, but he said he was secretly quite pleased because he had been very taken with me when we first met but had been too much of a gentleman to do anything about it.”

  On another occasion, while rummaging through a box of old photographs, her mother’s eyes had misted over when she came across a picture of Jo at a few days old.

  “Your father took this on a camera he borrowed from a friend. We didn’t have much money in those days,” she said. “He was besotted by you, cried his eyes out, he did, when you were born. He was mortified that the doctor saw him break down, but he couldn’t stop himself.”

  Jo smiled. “I always knew he was a big softie under that composed exterior.”

  There had been many more reminiscences about her parents’ past that Jo had never been privy to. Then, one overcast morning, they were sitting together in silence in her mother’s small kitchen.

  “So, how are things in your life?” said Pam, seemingly apropos of nothing.

  The question took Jo by surprise, a non sequitur after two days in the emotional hothouse of her mother’s devastation and sense of loss.

  “How are things with me?” she parroted, letting out a long breath. “Well, where do I start?”

  If her mother had asked her the question two weeks ago, she would have batted it aside with the answer “Fine,” fearing a deluge of self-righteous remarks and lectures would come her way if she told the absolute truth. But in the past few days they had shared so much, and become far closer than before, that Jo felt totally comfortable telling all. In fact, she wanted to.

  “Are you ready for this?” she smiled, then took a deep breath and launched into a meandering monologue that brought her mother entirely up to date on the disaster zone that was her daughter’s personal life. Her relationship with Sean, finding out he was married, how he said he would leave his wife for her, and how she was still all mixed up about it. It was the first time she had admitted the last bit to anyone, even herself.

  “Do you love him?” Her mother looked at her unblinkingly, through red-rimmed eyes swollen from prolonged crying.

  “I don’t know,” said Jo, and it was the truth. She knew she had very strong feelings toward Sean, but she didn’t know whether they were caused by genuine emotion or merely the roller-coaster drama of the relationship. “But I do know I would find it very hard to cause the same devastation to another family that was done to mine.”

  Pam stretched her arms up in the air and turned to look out of the window. “Except that it would be Sean doing the real damage, not you. They’re his family and no one forced him to start his affair with you. It’s the same story with Jeff.”

  Jo stared at the back of her mother’s head for a few moments, blinking with incomprehension at what she’d just heard. No lecture, not even a sanctimonious remark. Just an observation that, uncharacteristically for Pam, sounded like support.

  Jo resisted the overwhelming urge to say, “Bloody hell, you’ve changed your tune,” and carried on with her revelations. “Jeff’s affair is over and he wants us to get back together,” she said matter-of-factly, waiting for her mother to start doing cartwheels around the room.

  Instead, Pam turned to face her and slowly raised her eyebrows. “Really? And how do you feel about that?”

  Jo sighed. “No idea. Ten minutes after he suggested it I found out about Dad and I’ve hardly given it another thought since.”

  “I see.” Her mother went back to staring out of the window. A slight drizzle had begun to fall.

  Jo felt anxious at her mother’s lack of response. “I know I should give it serious consideration because of the children,” she said, “but I think I would find it very hard to get things back on track with Jeff after everything that’s happened.”

  Her mother stood up to open the kitchen window a couple of inches, then returned to her chair and pulled it closer to Jo. She sat and looked at her daughter for a moment or two, something clearly on her mind. After a while, she cleared her throat.

  “Your father had an affair.”

  Jo felt like she’d been punched in the center of her forehead, and reeled slightly on her chair. There was no mistaking her mother’s clearly spoken words. She stared in disbelief and whispered, “Sorry?”

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it?” said Pam, with a thin smile. “I had no idea of it and I was his wife living under the same roof.”

  Jo’s brain was pounding with questions she wanted answered, but she couldn’t get a proper train of thought together. “So . . . when?”

  Her mother took a sharp intake of breath. “Oh, years ago. You were about twelve so Tim must have been, oh, seven I suppose.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “I was told by a local woman who had always disliked me,” said Pam, absentmindedly scraping her nail backward and forward over a mark on the table. “Do you remember Betty Mayhew? She worked in the corner shop.”

  “Um, vaguely.”

  “Anyway,” said Pam briskly, “we had a little disagreement about something and she blurted it out. She said something like, ‘No wonder your husband needs another woman to keep him happy.’ ”

  Jo gasped and placed a hand over her mouth at the thought of such nastiness, but her mother ignored her and carried on.

  “So when Jim got
home that night, I recounted the incident to him and he broke down and confessed everything.”

  Fearful that her mother was going to wear a hole in the table with her persistent scraping, Jo leaned across and gently took her hand. She squeezed it softly as she listened to the whole story.

  It turned out the woman was a forty-five-year-old widow from the Rotary club who was known to both Pam and Jim. She had lost her husband to cancer the previous year, and Pam had given Jim her blessing to help the woman with the occasional odd job that needed a man’s touch.

  “Trouble is, he ended up touching her and the odd jobs became rather more frequent as a cover for their grubby little activities,” said her mother bitterly. “I still didn’t suspect because Jim was such a moral man. I never dreamed he would behave like that.”

  “So when you confronted him he ended it?” said Jo, leaping to an understandable assumption considering her parents had stayed together.

  “God no. He said he was going to leave us for her. Can you believe that? I begged, I raged, I wept, I tried absolutely everything to persuade him to stay.”

  “Well, it obviously worked.” Jo gave a small smile, but inside she felt her heart had been wrenched in two. She felt sorry for her mother, but in truth her pain was for herself in having to face the cold, harsh reality that perhaps her father hadn’t been a whiter than white hero after all.

  “He stayed, yes,” said her mother in a small voice. “But not because of me. He stayed purely because he couldn’t bear to leave you and Tim. It was ‘For the sake of the children,’ as they say.”

  Jo squeezed her mother’s hand tighter and they sat in silence, united by the curious bond of both being cheated on by their husbands. After a couple of minutes, Jo stood up and filled the kettle for a restorative cup of tea.

  “He never forgave me for it,” said Pam, looking up at her. “I always felt he hated me for not being her. He gave her up, but it was like living with a ghost after that. I always felt he was thinking about her.”

  “I’m sure he wasn’t really,” said Jo reassuringly. “After all, you stayed together long after Tim and I left home, so it can’t have been for our sake then, can it?”

  “No, but she wasn’t an option for him by then, anyway. A couple of years after he ended their affair she married someone else from the Rotary Club. I suspect it broke Jim’s heart.” A small tear ran down the side of Pam’s nose. She wiped her face quickly with the back of her hand. “I loved him dearly,” she sniffed. “But I think I’ve cried enough for him now, not least in the years when he was still alive. I tried hard to be the perfect wife after he’d decided to stay, because I felt so pathetically grateful.” She stopped for a moment and stared into space. “I would cook, clean, iron, keep myself looking nice, never disagree with him, whatever it took to make him feel he’d made the right decision by staying. But he had all the power after that, and whatever I did wasn’t enough. It wasn’t a marriage, we just existed under the same roof.”

  Placing two piping hot mugs of tea on the table, Jo sat down again. “I must say Tim and I noticed you were very tense with each other over Christmas,” she said, taking a tentative sip and feeling the piping hot liquid slip down her throat.

  “Christmas, Easter, Shrove Tuesday, a Thursday, whatever,” recited Pam flatly. “We were tense with each other most of the time but usually did a good job of disguising it whenever you or Tim were around. After you two left home we didn’t have to bother anymore and the atmosphere in the house was at worst bloody awful, at best bearable. Your father retreated to his shed most of the time, and I turned into this nagging, bitter old woman. I was the monster he made me.” She stopped speaking and took a mouthful of tea.

  “You’re not a monster, Mum,” said Jo quietly. “You were obviously dreadfully unhappy, and now I know why. I’m so sorry.”

  Her mother smiled, a genuine, warm smile. “What are you apologizing for, you daft thing,” she said, ruffling Jo’s hair. “Little Jo, apologist extraordinaire. You’ve always been too caring for your own good, do you know that?”

  “I’ve toughened up a bit lately.”

  “Good. So what is the new tough Jo going to do about her marriage?” said Pam, straightening her back and smoothing down her voluminous Fair Isle sweater.

  “Oh Gawd,” she groaned, staring up at the ceiling. “I thought it was over for good and had kind of reconciled myself to that, and now my mind is in turmoil again.”

  “Want my advice?” Her mother raised her eyebrows questioningly.

  “Yes, particularly after the conversation we’ve just had,” smiled Jo.

  “Make the decision based purely on your feelings for Jeff and don’t muddy it with thoughts of what’s best for the children,” said Pam firmly. “They have already got used to the idea that you’ve split up, so whatever damage may have been done—and I doubt there’s much—has been done already.” She stopped speaking and stared at Jo for a few moments before continuing. “If you’re going to get back with Jeff, you have to be damned sure he is what you want, because you mustn’t put the kids through a second break-up. If you’re unsure, it’s best to leave it as it is.”

  “What, stay single for the rest of my life?” said Jo forlornly.

  “No, that’s not what I mean.” Her mother gave an exasperated sigh. “I’m saying that from this standpoint, you should choose the man you think you can happily spend the rest of your life with.”

  “I thought that when I married Jeff.”

  “Yes, but we all think that in our idealistic twenties. Then the reality of having children and struggling to make ends meet kicks in and it’s a miracle any marriage survives.” She took a mouthful of tea. “You’re more mature and realistic now. You’ve had the children and suffered the knocks and you know better what you want from a man. I’m sure whatever decision you make will be the right one for your long-term happiness.”

  Jo was momentarily stunned by her mother’s rational, common sense outlook. She’s right, she thought. I’m a different person now. I’m not even the same woman I was a couple of years ago, never mind ten years back when I married Jeff.

  Fortified by this revelation, she decided to bite the bullet. “There’s someone else too,” she said, wincing as she said it.

  Her mother laughed and shook her head. “What, apart from Jeff and Sean?”

  “Yes, but nothing’s happened. It’s not sexual or anything,” said Jo hastily, suddenly reverting to a young girl again, fearful of her mother’s disapproval.

  Pam looked slightly bemused. “So what is it then? A flirtation?”

  “Sort of, but a bit more than that really. It’s the man I’ve been working for as an interior decorator. I’ve known him for eighteen months and we’ve become good friends,” said Jo, rummaging in her handbag for Martin’s business card. She found it and placed it on the table in front of her mother, who picked it up.

  “Chairman eh?” A shadow of doubt suddenly crossed Pam’s face. “He’s not married as well, is he?”

  “No,” laughed Jo. “He’s very much single and the perfect gentleman. It was all very businesslike for a while, then a few months ago he said he’d like us to start dating.”

  “And?”

  “And I said I would think about it, but that I’d like us to continue as friends for a while, which he accepted,” said Jo with finality.

  “Hmm, sounds like you’re not that keen,” said Pam.

  Jo shook her head. “No, that’s not true. I just know he’s the kind of man I couldn’t mess about with. If I started to see him in that way, I suspect it would get very serious very quickly, so I would want to be absolutely sure he was the one I wanted.”

  “What’s he like?”

  Jo’s face lit up. “Incredible. It’s hard to describe, but he just sorts everything out. There never seem to be any problems when he’s around. You feel that if you suddenly fell backward, he’d be there to catch you. When I rang to tell him about Dad’s death, he was amazing. He said he woul
d get his lawyers to deal with any legal matters for us, free of charge, and he organized that beautiful flower arrangement from the children, you know, the one on Dad’s coffin.”

  “Goodness me, you are spoilt for choice,” said Pam, raising her eyebrows. “Jeff, Sean, and now . . .” she paused to look at the business card, “. . . Martin Blake. Anyone else I should know about?”

  Jo smiled and shook her head slowly. “No, that’s it.”

  Conor’s face popped into her mind as she said it. He had been occupying her thoughts quite a bit lately, but she put it down to his involvement with the family after her father’s death. A few hours after comforting her in the shed, he had driven a disheveled, overemotional Tim back to London, then called Jo to reassure her that he was OK.

  “I’ve just tucked him up in bed with a hot water bottle and he’s out for the count. He’s completely drained,” he said.

  “Poor love,” said Jo. “Look, at the risk of being tediously repetitive, thanks for everything.”

  Conor made a snoring noise down the phone. “If you say that one more time I’m going to put you across my knee and spank you,” he growled.

  “Ooh . . . thanks, thanks, thanks,” she laughed.

  After a couple more minutes of idle chitchat about the weather and how her mother was bearing up, Jo couldn’t help herself.

  “So, how’s Emma?” she asked casually. “I hope she didn’t mind you disappearing up here at such short notice.”

  “She’s fine. It was no problem,” he said quickly. “So when are you coming back home?”

  “The end of the week I think,” she said. “Mum seems okayish now and I think Jeff has gone into shock at having to deal with the children on his own for a few days. Still, at least he knows what I deal with every day now, so it’s no bad thing.”

  “Oh, I’m sure Candy has been helping him out,” said Conor sarcastically. “You know, baking home cookies and stuff.”